Not from humor — from the sheer, brazen arithmetic of it.

She had come to the meeting where she would be accused of stealing my property, and she had carried, into that meeting, a bag she had stolen from me, held against her chest like a shield.

She either did not remember it was mine, which told me how little the taking had meant to her, or she did remember and simply did not care, which told me something worse.

Either way, there it was: my bag, in her hands, in a conference room, as my lawyer prepared to lay a photograph of her carrying my grandmother’s jewelry onto the table.

She had robbed me so casually that she’d lost track of which of her things were actually mine.

Damian slid a draft settlement across the glass table.